Take 4+: Presentations on ‘Elements of Neural Networks and Deep Learning’ – Parts 1-8

“Lights, camera and … action – Take 4+!”

This post includes a rework of all presentation of ‘Elements of Neural Networks and Deep Learning Parts 1-8 ‘ since my earlier presentations had some missing parts, omissions and some occasional errors. So I have re-recorded all the presentations.
This series of presentation will do a deep-dive into Deep Learning networks starting from the fundamentals. The equations required for performing learning in a L-layer Deep Learning network are derived in detail, starting from the basics. Further, the presentations also discuss multi-class classification, regularization techniques, and gradient descent optimization methods in deep networks methods. Finally the presentations also touch on how Deep Learning Networks can be tuned.

The corresponding implementations are available in vectorized R, Python and Octave are available in my book ‘Deep Learning from first principles:Second edition- In vectorized Python, R and Octave‘

1. Elements of Neural Networks and Deep Learning – Part 1
This presentation introduces Neural Networks and Deep Learning. A look at history of Neural Networks, Perceptrons and why Deep Learning networks are required and concluding with a simple toy examples of a Neural Network and how they compute. This part also includes a small digression on the basics of Machine Learning and how the algorithm learns from a data set

2. Elements of Neural Networks and Deep Learning – Part 2
This presentation takes logistic regression as an example and creates an equivalent 2 layer Neural network. The presentation also takes a look at forward & backward propagation and how the cost is minimized using gradient descent

The implementation of the discussed 2 layer Neural Network in vectorized R, Python and Octave are available in my post ‘Deep Learning from first principles in Python, R and Octave – Part 1‘

3. Elements of Neural Networks and Deep Learning – Part 3
This 3rd part, discusses a primitive neural network with an input layer, output layer and a hidden layer. The neural network uses tanh activation in the hidden layer and a sigmoid activation in the output layer. The equations for forward and backward propagation are derived.

To see the implementations for the above discussed video see my post ‘Deep Learning from first principles in Python, R and Octave – Part 2‘

4. Elements of Neural Network and Deep Learning – Part 4
This presentation is a continuation of my 3rd presentation in which I derived the equations for a simple 3 layer Neural Network with 1 hidden layer. In this video presentation, I discuss step-by-step the derivations for a L-Layer, multi-unit Deep Learning Network, with any activation function g(z)

The implementations of L-Layer, multi-unit Deep Learning Network in vectorized R, Python and Octave are available in my post Deep Learning from first principles in Python, R and Octave – Part 3

5. Elements of Neural Network and Deep Learning – Part 5
This presentation discusses multi-class classification using the Softmax function. The detailed derivation for the Jacobian of the Softmax is discussed, and subsequently the derivative of cross-entropy loss is also discussed in detail. Finally the final set of equations for a Neural Network with multi-class classification is derived.

The corresponding implementations in vectorized R, Python and Octave are available in the following posts
a. Deep Learning from first principles in Python, R and Octave – Part 4
b. Deep Learning from first principles in Python, R and Octave – Part 5

6. Elements of Neural Networks and Deep Learning – Part 6
This part discusses initialization methods specifically like He and Xavier. The presentation also focuses on how to prevent over-fitting using regularization. Lastly the dropout method of regularization is also discussed

The corresponding implementations in vectorized R, Python and Octave of the above discussed methods are available in my post Deep Learning from first principles in Python, R and Octave – Part 6

7. Elements of Neural Networks and Deep Learning – Part 7
This presentation introduces exponentially weighted moving average and shows how this is used in different approaches to gradient descent optimization. The key techniques discussed are learning rate decay, momentum method, rmsprop and adam.

The equivalent implementations of the gradient descent optimization techniques in R, Python and Octave can be seen in my post Deep Learning from first principles in Python, R and Octave – Part 7

8. Elements of Neural Networks and Deep Learning – Part 8
This last part touches on the method to adopt while tuning hyper-parameters in Deep Learning networks

Checkout my book ‘Deep Learning from first principles: Second Edition – In vectorized Python, R and Octave’. My book starts with the implementation of a simple 2-layer Neural Network and works its way to a generic L-Layer Deep Learning Network, with all the bells and whistles. The derivations have been discussed in detail. The code has been extensively commented and included in its entirety in the Appendix sections. My book is available on Amazon as paperback ($18.99) and in kindle version($9.99/Rs449).

This concludes this series of presentations on “Elements of Neural Networks and Deep Learning’

Also
1. My book ‘Practical Machine Learning in R and Python: Third edition’ on Amazon
2. Introducing cricpy:A python package to analyze performances of cricketers
3. Natural language processing: What would Shakespeare say?
4. Big Data-2: Move into the big league:Graduate from R to SparkR
5. Presentation on Wireless Technologies – Part 1
6. Introducing cricketr! : An R package to analyze performances of cricketers

To see all posts click Index of posts

My presentations on ‘Elements of Neural Networks & Deep Learning’ -Parts 6,7,8

This is the final set of presentations in my series ‘Elements of Neural Networks and Deep Learning’. This set follows the earlier 2 sets of presentations namely
1. My presentations on ‘Elements of Neural Networks & Deep Learning’ -Part1,2,3
2. My presentations on ‘Elements of Neural Networks & Deep Learning’ -Parts 4,5

In this final set of presentations I discuss initialization methods, regularization techniques including dropout. Next I also discuss gradient descent optimization methods like momentum, rmsprop, adam etc. Lastly, I briefly also touch on hyper-parameter tuning approaches. The corresponding implementations are available in vectorized R, Python and Octave are available in my book ‘Deep Learning from first principles:Second edition- In vectorized Python, R and Octave‘

1. Elements of Neural Networks and Deep Learning – Part 6
This part discusses initialization methods specifically like He and Xavier. The presentation also focuses on how to prevent over-fitting using regularization. Lastly the dropout method of regularization is also discusses

The corresponding implementations in vectorized R, Python and Octave of the above discussed methods are available in my post Deep Learning from first principles in Python, R and Octave – Part 6

2. Elements of Neural Networks and Deep Learning – Part 7
This presentation introduces exponentially weighted moving average and shows how this is used in different approaches to gradient descent optimization. The key techniques discussed are learning rate decay, momentum method, rmsprop and adam.

The equivalent implementations of the gradient descent optimization techniques in R, Python and Octave can be seen in my post Deep Learning from first principles in Python, R and Octave – Part 7

3. Elements of Neural Networks and Deep Learning – Part 8
This last part touches upon hyper-parameter tuning in Deep Learning networks

This concludes this series of presentations on “Elements of Neural Networks and Deep Learning’

Important note: Do check out my later version of these videos at Take 4+: Presentations on ‘Elements of Neural Networks and Deep Learning’ – Parts 1-8 . These have more content and also include some corrections. Check it out!

To see all posts click Index of posts

My presentations on ‘Elements of Neural Networks & Deep Learning’ -Parts 4,5

This is the next set of presentations on “Elements of Neural Networks and Deep Learning”. In the 4th presentation I discuss and derive the generalized equations for a multi-unit, multi-layer Deep Learning network. The 5th presentation derives the equations for a Deep Learning network when performing multi-class classification along with the derivations for cross-entropy loss. The corresponding implementations are available in vectorized R, Python and Octave are available in my book ‘Deep Learning from first principles:Second edition- In vectorized Python, R and Octave‘

1. Elements of Neural Network and Deep Learning – Part 4
This presentation is a continuation of my 3rd presentation in which I derived the equations for a simple 3 layer Neural Network with 1 hidden layer. In this video presentation, I discuss step-by-step the derivations for a L-Layer, multi-unit Deep Learning Network, with any activation function g(z)

The implementations of L-Layer, multi-unit Deep Learning Network in vectorized R, Python and Octave are available in my post Deep Learning from first principles in Python, R and Octave – Part 3

2. Elements of Neural Network and Deep Learning – Part 5
This presentation discusses multi-class classification using the Softmax function. The detailed derivation for the Jacobian of the Softmax is discussed, and subsequently the derivative of cross-entropy loss is also discussed in detail. Finally the final set of equations for a Neural Network with multi-class classification is derived.

To be continued. Watch this space!

Also see
1. My book ‘Practical Machine Learning in R and Python: Third edition’ on Amazon
2. Big Data-2: Move into the big league:Graduate from R to SparkR
3. Introducing QCSimulator: A 5-qubit quantum computing simulator in R
4. My TEDx talk on the “Internet of Things
5. Rock N’ Roll with Bluemix, Cloudant & NodeExpress
6. GooglyPlus: yorkr analyzes IPL players, teams, matches with plots and tables
7. Literacy in India – A deepR dive
8. Fun simulation of a Chain in Android

To see all posts click Index of Posts

My travels through the realms of Data Science, Machine Learning, Deep Learning and (AI)

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies

When a new planet swims into his ken;

Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes

He star’d at the Pacific—and all his men

Look’d at each other with a wild surmise—

Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer by John Keats

The above excerpt from John Keat’s poem captures the the exhilaration that one experiences, when discovering something for the first time. This also summarizes to some extent my own as enjoyment while pursuing Data Science, Machine Learning and the like.

I decided to write this post, as occasionally youngsters approach me and ask me where they should start their adventure in Data Science & Machine Learning. There are other times, when the ‘not-so-youngsters’ want to know what their next step should be after having done some courses. This post includes my travels through the domains of Data Science, Machine Learning, Deep Learning and (soon to be done AI).

By no means, am I an authority in this field, which is ever-widening and almost bottomless, yet I would like to share some of my experiences in this fascinating field. I include a short review of the courses I have done below. I also include alternative routes through courses which I did not do, but are probably equally good as well. Feel free to pick and choose any course or set of courses. Alternatively, you may prefer to read books or attend bricks-n-mortar classes, In any case, I hope the list below will provide you with some overall direction.

All my learning in the above domains have come from MOOCs and I restrict myself to the top 3 MOOCs, or in my opinion, ‘the original MOOCs’, namely Coursera, edX or Udacity, but may throw in some courses from other online sites if they are only available there. I would recommend these 3 MOOCs over the other numerous online courses and also over face-to-face classroom courses for the following reasons. These MOOCs

Are taken by world class colleges and the lectures are delivered by top class Professors who have a great depth of knowledge and a wealth of experience
The Professors, besides delivering quality content, also point out to important tips, tricks and traps
You can revisit lectures in online courses anytime to refresh your memory
Lectures are usually short between 8 -15 mins (Personally, my attention span is around 15-20 mins at a time!)

Here is a fair warning and something quite obvious. No amount of courses, lectures or books will help if you don’t put it to use through some language like Octave, R or Python.

The journey
My trip through Data Science, Machine Learning started with an off-chance remark,about 3 years ago, from an old friend of mine who spoke to me about having done a few courses at Coursera, and really liked it. He further suggested that I should try. This was the final push which set me sailing into this vast domain.

I have included the list of the courses I have done over the past 5 years (37+ certifications completed and another 9 audited-listened only without doing the assignments). For each of the courses I have included a short review of the course, whether I think the course is mandatory, the language in which the course is based on, and finally whether I have done the course myself etc. I have also included alternative courses, which I may have not done, but which I think are equally good. Finally, I suggest some courses which I have heard of and which are very good and worth taking.

1. Machine Learning, Stanford, Prof Andrew Ng, Coursera
(Requirement: Mandatory, Language:Octave,Status:Completed)
This course provides an excellent foundation to build your Machine Learning citadel on. The course covers the mathematical details of linear, logistic and multivariate regression. There is also a good coverage of topics like Neural Networks, SVMs, Anamoly Detection, underfitting, overfitting, regularization etc. Prof Andrew Ng presents the material in a very lucid manner. It is a great course to start with. It would be a good idea to brush up some basics of linear algebra, matrices and a little bit of calculus, specifically computing the local maxima/minima. You should be able to take this course even if you don’t know Octave as the Prof goes over the key aspects of the language.

2. Statistical Learning, Prof Trevor Hastie & Prof Robert Tibesherani, Online Stanford– (Requirement:Mandatory, Language:R, Status;Completed) –
The course includes linear and polynomial regression, logistic regression. Details also include cross-validation and the bootstrap methods, how to do model selection and regularization (ridge and lasso). It also touches on non-linear models, generalized additive models, boosting and SVMs. Some unsupervised learning methods are also discussed. The 2 Professors take turns in delivering lectures with a slight touch of humor.

3a. Data Science Specialization: Prof Roger Peng, Prof Brian Caffo & Prof Jeff Leek, John Hopkins University (Requirement: Option A, Language: R Status: Completed)
This is a comprehensive 10 module specialization based on R. This Specialization gives a very broad overview of Data Science and Machine Learning. The modules cover R programming, Statistical Inference, Practical Machine Learning, how to build R products and R packages and finally has a very good Capstone project on NLP

3b. Applied Data Science with Python Specialization: University of Michigan (Requirement: Option B, Language: Python, Status: Not done)
In this specialization I only did the Applied Machine Learning in Python (Prof Kevyn-Collin Thomson). This is a very good course that covers a lot of Machine Learning algorithms(linear, logistic, ridge, lasso regression, knn, SVMs etc. Also included are confusion matrices, ROC curves etc. This is based on Python’s Scikit Learn

3c. Machine Learning Specialization, University Of Washington (Requirement:Option C, Language:Python, Status : Not completed). This appears to be a very good Specialization in Python

4. Statistics with R Specialization, Duke University (Requirement: Useful and a must know, Language R, Status:Not Completed)
I audited (listened only) to the following 2 modules from this Specialization.
a.Inferential Statistics
b.Linear Regression and Modeling
Both these courses are taught by Prof Mine Cetikya-Rundel who delivers her lessons with extraordinary clarity. Her lectures are filled with many examples which she walks you through in great detail

5.Bayesian Statistics: From Concept to Data Analysis: Univ of California, Santa Cruz (Requirement: Optional, Language : R, Status:Completed)
This is an interesting course and provides an alternative point of view to frequentist approach

6. Data Science and Engineering with Spark, University of California, Berkeley, Prof Antony Joseph, Prof Ameet Talwalkar, Prof Jon Bates
(Required: Mandatory for Big Data, Status:Completed, Language; pySpark)
This specialization contains 3 modules
a.Introduction to Apache Spark
b.Distributed Machine Learning with Apache Spark
c.Big Data Analysis with Apache Spark

This is an excellent course for those who want to make an entry into Distributed Machine Learning. The exercises are fairly challenging and your code will predominantly be made of map/reduce and lambda operations as you process data that is distributed across Spark RDDs. I really liked the part where the Prof shows how a matrix multiplication on a single machine is of the order of O(nd^2+d^3) (which is the basis of Machine Learning) is reduced to O(nd^2) by taking outer products on data which is distributed.

7. Deep Learning Prof Andrew Ng, Younes Bensouda Mourri, Kian Katanforoosh : Requirement:Mandatory,Language:Python, Tensorflow Status:Completed)

This course had 5 Modules which start from the fundamentals of Neural Networks, their derivation and vectorized Python implementation. The specialization also covers regularization, optimization techniques, mini batch normalization, Convolutional Neural Networks, Recurrent Neural Networks, LSTMs applied to a wide variety of real world problems

The modules are
a. Neural Networks and Deep Learning
In this course Prof Andrew Ng explains differential calculus, linear algebra and vectorized Python implementations of Deep Learning algorithms. The derivation for back-propagation is done and then the Prof shows how to compute a multi-layered DL network
b.Improving Deep Neural Networks: Hyperparameter tuning, Regularization and Optimization
Deep Neural Networks can be very flexible, and come with a lots of knobs (hyper-parameters) to tune with. In this module, Prof Andrew Ng shows a systematic way to tune hyperparameters and by how much should one tune. The course also covers regularization(L1,L2,dropout), gradient descent optimization and batch normalization methods. The visualizations used to explain the momentum method, RMSprop, Adam,LR decay and batch normalization are really powerful and serve to clarify the concepts. As an added bonus,the module also includes a great introduction to Tensorflow.
c.Structuring Machine Learning Projects
A very good module with useful tips, tricks and traps that need to be considered while working on Machine Learning and Deep Learning projects
d. Convolutional Neural Networks
This domain has a lot of really cool ideas, where images represented as 3D volumes, are compressed and stretched longitudinally before applying a multi-layered deep learning neural network to this thin slice for performing classification,detection etc. The Prof provides a glimpse into this fascinating world of image classification, detection andl neural art transfer with frameworks like Keras and Tensorflow.
e. Sequence Models
In this module covers in good detail concepts like RNNs, GRUs, LSTMs, word embeddings, beam search and attention model.

8. Neural Networks for Machine Learning, Prof Geoffrey Hinton,University of Toronto
(Requirement: Mandatory, Language;Octave, Status:Completed)
This is a broad course which starts from the basic of Perceptrons, all the way to Boltzman Machines, RNNs, CNNS, LSTMs etc The course also covers regularisation, learning rate decay, momentum method etc

9.Probabilistic Graphical Models, Stanford Prof Daphne Koller(Language:Octave, Status: Partially completed)
This has 3 courses
a.Probabilistic Graphical Models 1: Representation – Done
b.Probabilistic Graphical Models 2: Inference – To do
c.Probabilistic Graphical Models 3: Learning – To do
This course discusses how a system, which can be represented as a complex interaction
of probability distributions, will behave. This is probably the toughest course I did. I did manage to get through the 1st module, While I felt that grasped a few things, I did not wholly understand the import of this. However I feel this is an important domain and I will definitely revisit this in future

10. Reinforcement Specialization : University of Alberta, Prof Adam White and Prof Martha White
(Requirement: Very important, Language;Python, Status: Partially Completed)
This is a set of 4 courses. I did the first 2 of the 4. Reinforcement Learning appears deceptively simple, but it is anything but simple. Definitely a very critical area to learn.

a.Fundamentals of Reinforcement Learning: This course discusses Markov models, value functions and Bellman equations and dynamic programming.
b.Sample based learning Learning methods: This course touches on Monte Carlo methods, Temporal Difference methods, Q Learning etc.

Reinforcement Learning is a must-have in your AI arsenal.

11. Tensorflow in Practice Specialization – Prof Laurence Moroney – Deep Learning.AI
(Requirement: Important, Language;Python, Status: Completed)
This is a good course but definitely do the Deep Learning Specialization by Prof Andrew Ng
There are 4 courses in this Specialization. I completed all 4 courses. They are fairly straight forward
a. Introduction to TensorFlow – This course introduces you to Tensorflow, image recognition with brute-force method
b. Convolutional Neural Networks in Tensorflow – This course touches on how to build a CNN, image augmentation, transfer learning and multi-class classification
c. Natural Language Processing in Tensorflow – Word embeddings, sentiment analysis, LSTMs, RNNs are discussed.
d. Sequences, time series and prediction – This course discusses using RNNs for time series, auto correlation

12. Natural Language Processing Specialization – Prof Younes Bensouda, Lukasz Kaiser from DeepLearning.AI
(Requirement: Very Important, Language;Python, Status: Partially Completed)
This is the latest specialization from Deep Learning.AI. I have completed the first 2 courses
a.Natural Language Processing with Classification and Vector Spaces -The first course deals with sentiment analysis with Naive Bayes, vector space models, capturing dependencies using PCA etc
b. Natural Language Processing with Probabilistic Models – In this course techniques for auto correction, Markov models and Viterbi algorithm for Parts of Speech tagging, auto completion and word embedding are discussed.

13. Mining Massive Data Sets Prof Jure Leskovec, Prof Anand Rajaraman and ProfJeff Ullman. Online Stanford, Status Partially done.,
I did quickly audit this course, a year back, when it used to be in Coursera. It now seems to have moved to Stanford online. But this is a very good course that discusses key concepts of Mining Big Data of the order a few Petabytes

14. Introduction to Artificial Intelligence, Prof Sebastian Thrun & Prof Peter Norvig, Udacity
This is a really good course. I have started on this course a couple of times and somehow gave up. Will revisit to complete in future. Quite extensive in its coverage.Touches BFS,DFS, A-Star, PGM, Machine Learning etc.

15.Deep Learning (with TensorFlow), Vincent Vanhoucke, Principal Scientist at Google Brain.
Got started on this one and abandoned some time back. In my to do list though

16. Generative AI with LLMs

My learning journey is based on Lao Tzu’s dictum of ‘A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving’. You could have a goal and try to plan your courses accordingly.
And so my journey continues…

I hope you find this list useful.
Have a great journey ahead!!!

Neural Networks: On Perceptrons and Sigmoid Neurons

Neural Networks had their beginnings in 1943 when Warren McCulloch, a neurophysiologist, and a young mathematician, Walter Pitts, wrote a paper on how neurons might work. Much later in 1958, Frank Rosenblatt, a neuro-biologist proposed the Perceptron. The Perceptron is a computer model or computerized machine which is devised to represent or simulate the ability of the brain to recognize and discriminate. In machine learning, the perceptron is an algorithm for supervised learning of binary classifiers

Initially it was believed that Perceptrons were capable of many things including “the ability to walk, talk, see, write, reproduce itself and be conscious of its existence.”

However, a subsequent paper by Marvin Minky and Seymour Papert of MIT, titled “Perceptrons” proved that the Perceptron was truly limited in its functionality. Specifically they showed that the Perceptron was incapable of producing XOR functionality. The Perceptron is only capable of classification where the data points are linearly separable.

This post implements the simple learning algorithm of the ‘Linear Perceptron’ and the ‘Sigmoid Perceptron’. The implementation has been done in Octave. This implementation is based on “Neural networks for Machine Learning” course by Prof Geoffrey Hinton at Coursera

Perceptron learning procedure
z = ∑w_ix_i + b
where w_i is the i^thweight and x_iis the i_th feature

For every training case compute the activation output z_i

If the output classifies correctly, leave the weights alone
If the output classifies a ‘0’ as a ‘1’, then subtract the the feature from the weight
If the output classifies a ‘0’ as a ‘1’, then add the feature to the weight

This simple neural network is represented below
perceptron

Sigmoid neuron learning procedure
z_i= sigmoid(∑w_ix_i + b)
where sigmoid is
$sigmoid(z) = 1/1+e^{-z}$

Hence
$z_{i} = 1/1+e^{-(\sum w_{i}x_{i}+b)}$
For every training case compute the activation output z_i

If the output classifies correctly, leave the weights alone
If the output incorrectly classifies a ‘0’ as a ‘1’ i.e. $z_{i} >sigmoid(0)$ , then subtract the feature from the weight
If the output incorrectly classifies a ‘1’ as ‘0’ i.e., i.e $z_{i} < sigmoid(0)$ , then add the feature to the weight
Iterate till errors <= 1

This is shown below
sigmoid_neuron

I have implemented the learning algorithm of the Perceptron and Sigmoid Neuron in Octave. The code is available at Github at Perceptron.

Perceptron execution

I performed the tests on 2 different datasets

Data 1
untitled

Data 2
untitled

2. Sigmoid Perceptron execution
Data 1 & Data 2

It can be seen that the Perceptron does work for simple linearly separable data. I will be implementing other more advanced Neural Networks in the months to come.

Watch this space!